Playing Tag: Cataloging by the Crowd

Elizabeth B. ThomsenMember Services Manager

NOBLE: North of Boston Library Exchangeet@noblenet.org

Traditional Taxonomy• "A Place for Everything, and Everything in

Its Place" • Shelf-oriented: We have to decide the

primary subject for a work so we can put it somewhere

• There’s always a top-down hierarchy

Catalogers• We strive for logic, order and consistency• We provide access through authorized

headings, controlled vocabulary and properly-constructed Library of Congress Subject Headings

• Learn the system, and then apply it to all new material

Not So Simple• Many works are about more than one thing• Many subjects are “point up” to two or more

higher subjects• Any decision is wrong for some of your users• We mitigate by adding links and pointers: See and

See Also references, added entries, keyword searching, etc.

Wikipedia• Cataloging issues: establish a subject,

redirect users from other terms• A simple redirect can take users from the

unauthorized term to the one being used

Disambiguation Pages• Used when a subject has more than one

meaning, including topics, geographic and personal names

• Disambiguation pages have organized, annotated lists of all the different topics using the same term

Death Penalty

Two Paths to Disambiguation• Best Guess: If there is one article that is the

most likely, Wikipedia will redirect the user to that article, but offer a link to the disambiguation page

• User Must Choose: If there is no most likely article, the user must choose

Van Gogh | Mercury

Flickr• Photosharing site• Members tag their photos for their own

convenience, but also to share them• Members may allow others to add tags• Groups use tags to create galleries• Many informal games and projects use tags

Flickr Tags• Most common tags: subjects and places• Other tags: medium, technical details,

mood, color, geotagging• No synonym control • Informal rules tend to develop at all levels• Many members use multiple tags for the

same concept: mass and massachusetts

How Useful are Flickr Tags• Aboutness more difficult to determine for

photographs than text• Place names: tag all by place taken, or use

only when the place is significant? Use hierarchy for place names?

• What about tags like “me” and “cute”?

Flickr Examples• Flickr Current Tags – This is the main tags

page, with the most popular tags from the past few days, plus all the most popular tags

• My Tag Cloud – A member’s tag cloud• Boston | Boston Clusters | Cute Clusters

Flickr: Exploration• Flickr tags are useful for exploration and

discovery• You can’t find everything, and probably wouldn’t

want to• Tags have to be seen in context: groups, projects,

contacts, clustering, interestingness, etc.• Flickr search is weak

del.icio.us• Social bookmarking site• Members save things here for their own

use, share them and get recommendations• Members tag items for their own

convenience, but also to share and find additional resources

del.icio.us Tag Features• Recommend: When you tag an item, the

system presents recommended tags based on what other people have used, one click to add those. Tends to reduce synonym and spelling errors

• Tag bundles: Members can create sets of related tags for their own use, adds a little hierarchy and organization

del.icio.us Examples

• del.icio.us Main Page• Main Tag Display• Most Popular Tags• Display of tag: opensource

CiteULike• Academic social bookmarking site• Similar to del.icio.us, Furl and others• Members tag citations for articles, books,

websites, etc. • Broad folksonomy : Many people tagging

the same citations CiteULike

LibraryThing• Social cataloging system for books• Members catalog their personal book collections;

can also be used for small organization libraries, booklists, etc.

• Imports cataloging from LC, Amazon and other sources

• Members add tags to books in their collection

LibraryThing Tags• Members use tags for all sorts of things:

subjects, genre, theme, location, gift notes, and designations like tbr (to be read)

• Tags are used to organize the member’s collection, and for exploration of the site as a whole

LibraryThing Synonyms• LibraryThing allows premium members to

link duplicate tags• Only affects the global view of the tags, not

the actual tags• Only true duplicates should be linked• Linking is noted, and can be undone

LibraryThing Tag Examples• Tag Cloud• Author Cloud• Zeitgeist• Selected Tag: Complexity• Synonyms: Cooking• Tag Combining: Recipes

Future Directions• More recommended tags based on tags on the

same or similar works; the users own tags, etc.• More spelling help: “Did you mean…”• More synonym control for searching, as in

LibraryThing• Use of algorithms to assist in synonym control• Translation tools for tag searching• Private tags

Library Catalog Ideas• Use LibraryThing or something similar to

allow library members to create and share their own tagged collections of titles.

• Allow members to determine their own privacy settings for sharing lists. Include a real name option, like Amazon

• Integrate social information into the catalog as an option

Library Ideas, Cont’d• Encourage vendors to incorporate social

bookmarking features into their personalization options

• Add tag searching as an option • Harvest information from the social

software for collection development, as website content, etc.

Questions?

Elizabeth Thomsenet@noblenet.org